Flexible cushioning materials for cushioning and protecting articles during handling and shipment are in widespread use. A particularly popular form of such flexible cushioning material is a wrapping material consisting of laminated layers of plastic film having a multiplicity of spaced apart, air filled bubbles therein.
While providing excellent cushioning characteristics and being a relatively low-cost cushioning material, such cushioning material does have certain disadvantages and deficiencies. Because of the air filled bubbles, it is difficult to wrap the cushioning material about an article and hold the cushioning material in place to enclose tightly the article. Such difficulty is compounded when articles of irregular shapes and contours are being wrapped and packaged.
It is known that heat-shrinkage plastic film can be wrapped about an article or articles and then heated to shrink the same to enclose tightly the article or articles. It has been previously attempted to provide a heat-shrinkable air bubble protective packaging material by applying a heat-shrinkable plastic film to one surface of the air bubble material and mechanically pressing the heat-shrinkable film thereagainst. Because such a combination relies solely on surface attraction or surface tension to maintain the heat-shrinkable film on the air bubble material, dislodgement or separation of the heat-shrinkable film from the air bubble material prior to and during wrapping thereof around articles frequently occurs and therefore this attempt has been generally unsuccessful.